


where love is lost, your ghost is found

by sqacedust



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who & Related Fandoms, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Angst, Episode Fix-It: s04e08 Silence in the Library, F/F, Fluff, I miss River, Yowzah, if Chibnall won't do it then i will GODAMMIT, spacewives
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-17
Updated: 2020-06-17
Packaged: 2021-03-03 19:34:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,042
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24770929
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sqacedust/pseuds/sqacedust
Summary: The Doctor put her head in her hands, her elbows digging into the console.“I miss her too,” she said.The TARDIS hummed, urging her to look up. The console’s light had dimmed, save a small outline toward the centre of the console, highlighting a small hole, like the kind you’d plug headphones into, but bigger. Like it was meant for-The Doctor’s head snapped up. “Could that really work?” she asked, as much to herself as well as the TARDIS. Her breathing quickened, changing from heavy sighs into an excited rhythm that matched her fluttering hearts.‘Only one way to be sure,’ the TARDIS seemed to reply in her mind....Title is from "Turning Tables" by AdeleAll characters and settings belong to the BBC
Relationships: The Doctor/River Song, Thirteenth Doctor/River Song
Comments: 5
Kudos: 139





	where love is lost, your ghost is found

**Author's Note:**

> A character study of the Doctor that turned into a Yowzah/SpaceWives story. This story is still a bit experimental, but I do have a few things planned for our star crossed lovers

She stood in front of the bathroom mirror, refusing to meet the weary gaze of her reflection. She was tired. So very tired. Not from her most recent adventure with her now dropped- off companions, she was tired of losing people. She was tired of being alone.

The Doctor shrugged off her dirt-clad clothes, leaving them in a heap on the floor before slipping into the comfort of the water that filled her bathtub. She let herself soak in grief- let it envelop her. It was a certain day in the month of April and all she could think of was how she should have been celebrating such a joyous occasion, or rather, _who_ she should’ve been celebrating the day with. 

She let the water take her, warm her, but it couldn’t compensate for the warmth that _she_ made her feel. The warmth of _her touch._ Of _her love._ She sat with her arms around her legs, head in her knees. She had kept her emotions bottled up far past her breaking point, but she couldn’t get rid of them, not even through tears. She tried to cry, she really did, but all that came forth were a few ragged breaths. Why did time always take those who gave life to the universe? Why was it that she was always the only one left standing? She, who had seen so much, done so much, hurt so many, but saved countless more. And yet those who were so brilliant, so _radiant_ were snuffed out before they could make more than a dent in the fabric of the universe. 

She didn’t know how long she sat with her emotions in that silent bathtub. She didn’t even realize that the water had become cold, no longer attempting to give her the warmth she longed for. She hardly noticed how she shivered- she had been cold for so long. 

Eventually, she let go of her legs, leaning back to put her head underwater. Her hair floated around her face, clearly not understanding how still she felt, and how still she needed to be. But then again, she was the Doctor. She could never stay still for long. 

She reached for the shampoo next to her. It was the one day a year she let herself use this specific bottle, let herself bask in the scent of the woman whose hair she used to bury herself in, taking in the smell of strawberries and honey. She had left the bottle there ages ago, probably while visiting her eleventh face. It was one of the many yet seemingly few pieces of evidence that she’d ever lived on the TARDIS. 

The Doctor pulled the smallest amount into her hand and took a long sniff before rubbing it into her hair. At least she’d be able to pretend she was there, standing next to her, for another day or two. 

She could have stayed there forever, letting grief take her, but she eventually rid herself of the dirt and grime of the day’s events and pulled herself from the tub. She had to keep moving. For _her._ Because who knows what would happen if the Doctor stopped, even for a moment, even just to grieve. 

The TARDIS had set out a new set of clothes for her, taking the old ones who-knows-where to be washed before they magically reappear in her wardrobe the next day. She changed and found herself wandering into the console room, still feeling the weight of the pain in her chest wearing her down like the water weighed down her wet hair. She leaned against the console, gripping the rim until her knuckles turned white. She could feel the TARDIS’ own anguish in her mind. She missed her. 

The Doctor put her head in her hands, her elbows digging into the console. 

“I miss her too,” she said. 

The TARDIS hummed, urging her to look up. The console’s light had dimmed, save a small outline toward the centre of the console, highlighting a small hole, like the kind you’d plug headphones into, but bigger. Like it was meant for-

The Doctor’s head snapped up. “Could that really work?” she asked, as much to herself as well as the TARDIS. Her breathing quickened, changing from heavy sighs into an excited rhythm that matched her fluttering hearts. 

‘Only one way to be sure,’ the TARDIS seemed to reply in her mind. 

The Doctor needn’t even put in the coordinates, her machine already steering itself towards its next destination. She only had to push the lever, which thumped into the console with a _THUMP!,_ but the TARDIS didn’t mind. 

The machine sprung about, shaking from more than just the motion of the time vortex. Her passenger let out a laugh, hopeful for the first time in ages. 

She landed just in time to see her past self disappear into the TARDIS and vanish, full of questions that she now knew the answer to. She leapt out, careful to avoid the shadows as she sprinted along the same path to the CAL mainframe she had followed before, not even bothering to close the TARDIS door. 

Memories of that day kept trying to intrude her thoughts, but were, for the most part, unsuccessful. She remembered the painful conversation she he and River had when she realized he was a stranger, and she remembered the look River had given him every time their eyes met from across the room for the remainder of the adventure. She could practically feel River’s eyes on her when she wasn’t looking. A gaze of longing, of anguish, of _heartbreak_. 

She ran through the bookshelves, determined to outrun her demons. The soles of her shoes, worn down by countless escapades, gave no traction, and she almost went barreling into at least seven book shelves throughout the Library. She reached the room she and the others had spent the majority of their time in, plotting a way to rid themselves of the vashta nerada and free the 4022 trapped souls from the Library, and she pointed her sonic screwdriver at the platform in the centre of the room, which promptly opened up. It was then that she finally couldn’t stop her skidding feet and she slid right into the beam and down into the centre of the planet, a very disgraceful contrast from the sharp dive she had done the first time. 

Her jaw began to sting as she ran through the basement, recollecting how the force of River’s punch brought his body crashing to the floor for her to drag and handcuff before he could sacrifice himself. That one _stupid_ punch. 

She hesitated before rounding the last corner, her breathing heavy. The last time she’d been here, she had to watch her wife- no. Not this memory. She couldn’t think about that. Not when she had a chance of bringing her back. 

She finally walked into the small room, seeing the pair of handcuffs dangling from a pipe on the wall to her left. She rubbed her wrist, the ghost of the helplessly trapped feeling they gave her lingering. The empty chair sat in the front of her but she couldn’t look at it. Every time she tried to, she felt panic rise through her and memories she never wanted to relive play in her mind. 

_“There’s nothing you can do,” she cried, begging him to let her go. He tugged and tugged at the handcuffs in an attempt to reach their screwdrivers- a fruitless endeavor._

_“You can let me do this!” Never. He didn’t know it then, but River Song would not just be the woman who kills the Doctor, not just the woman who married him. She would be the woman who saved him._

_“If you die here, it’ll mean I’ll never have met you!” An excellent point, but what did it matter then? She knew too much about him. Why would he have told her so much if she wasn’t important? He had lived so long. Maybe it was time to let it all end and pass the torch to someone else, consequence be damned._

_“Time can be rewritten!” He was desperate. Whoever this woman was, she was important to him, and he_ knew _that if she died now he would never forgive himself. She knew his name. She was his future. How could he ever look her in the eyes again knowing that she would die for a man who broke her heart by not knowing. God, he really hates not knowing._

_River was crying now. The day she had feared so much had finally come- the day the Doctor wouldn’t know her. And she hadn’t shed a single tear. She hadn’t let herself. But now was as good a time as any- now was the only chance she would get._

_She looked at him as if he had said something unforgivable, like he couldn’t understand. Not now. Not yet. Because how dare he not know. After everything they’d been through, would go through, how could he even imagine changing a single word?_

_“Not those times. Not one line. Don’t you dare!”_

Oh. 

Her fingers stopped short of the sonic screwdriver in the wall. 

She couldn’t take her out. Not yet. She still had to go through Trenzalore. 

She pressed her forehead to the wall. 

“I’m sorry my love.” The words left a bitter taste on her tongue. She had to let her wife suffer for quite a while before she could save her. _Stupid time rules._

The vashta nerada would be closing in on her soon, as per their agreement. She didn’t have much time left. With a heavy heart, she retrieved her own, glowing sonic screwdriver from her coat pocket and pointed it at River’s, putting a clock on the download into her own screwdriver. It would happen, just not yet. Not for River anyway. 

“Hello?” she heard from behind, a startling sound in the deserted library. “The library’s not safe anymore. Please make your way to the teleports.”

The Doctor turned around, greeted by a familiar face. 

“Charlotte!” she smiled. She lacked the time to properly express her gratitude toward the interface who protected- or would protect- River until they’d meet again. 

“I’m sorry, do I know you?”

The Doctor glanced down, shaking her head. 

“Sort of. Not like this.” A sharp inhale. “Thank you. You don’t really know what for just yet, but thank you.”

She turned to leave, but the child stopped her. 

“Doctor.” The word made her glance up at the command node. “Are you the Doctor?”

“You’re too smart for someone who looks so young,” she chuckled. 

“You’re one to talk,” she replied, a smile on her lips. She glanced at the screwdriver in the Doctor’s hand before meeting her gaze once more. “I don’t know how long she’ll be here, but I promise I’ll take care of her.”

The Doctor glanced down at her feet, not wanting the little girl to see the pain in her eyes. No matter how old Charlotte really was, she was still a child in the Doctor’s eyes. And she would _never_ force a child to see such heartbreak. “Thank you,” she whispered before walking out of the room. 

And so began the silent and tense walk back to the TARDIS. She didn’t run this time. She couldn’t. Not while she was thinking about the loneliness her wife had to live with in the interface. Sure, she had Charlotte and Anita and the others, but they didn’t understand her. Not in the way the Doctor did. The Doctor couldn’t help but carry the burden of what had happened to her wife, who had sacrificed herself for a man who didn’t love her yet, and looked upon her with empty, unrecognizing eyes. 

As she turned to walk up the stairs, something caught her attention out of the corner of her eye. A blue book resting on the balcony railing, presiding over the rest of the library and its many books with stories that couldn’t even begin to compare to the ones the diary held. 

The Doctor smiled, scolding her past self for leaving something so valued and important lying there like it didn’t matter. The things in that diary could change the universe. 

She placed her fingers on it the way she had done before, only this time she picked it up, eyeing the worn binding that just begged to be flipped open. But not yet. Maybe now, she could finally read it. With River. The two of them, sitting by the TARDIS console, discarded mugs of tea in their hands as they reminisce, River’s head in the Doctor’s lap as River read aloud. She smiled at the idea, practically feeling River’s hair in her hands as she played with her curls. No. This was not just an idea. This was a possibility. 

She turned back to the stairs, diary in hand. Just as she had told Donna that day, “The next chapter is this way.”

The TARDIS door shut behind her with a _SNAP!_ and the machine immediately launched itself into the safety of the time vortex, leaving the empty Library behind to the vashta nerada. 

She ran up to the console and plunged the sonic screwdriver into the aforementioned glowing hole. The console whirred with new excitement and strain, having to process an entirely new consciousness into the machine. She was a child of the TARDIS. Surely, she was compatible. 

The Doctor crossed her fingers, mumbling, “Please,” under her breath over and over again. 

The TARDIS spoke to her, telling her that it would take a while to download a _200 something year old consciousness._ But the Doctor couldn’t wait. She was practically bouncing off of the walls. However long it would take, she couldn’t leave the console room. She didn’t want River to be alone. 

Instead, she busied herself, cleaning the arcs around the console and making sure the custard cream dispenser was working and just fiddling around the way she always does when she has nothing to do. 

Anything to keep herself from thinking about what could go wrong.

She must’ve consumed at least three tins worth of custard creams. At one point, she even ejected the TARDIS from the time vortex just so she could dangle her feet out of the doors and count the stars around the Andromeda galaxy. She kept a tally of every universe she wanted to take River, but more often than not found herself staring lovingly at those they had already been to instead, this time remembering the good times they’d had. 

_“Oh, look over there!” River pointed through a gap in the trees at Asgard, skiers zipping down glistening, snow capped mountains._

_“I’ve always wanted to try that. I should think I’d be very good,” he’d said, and then went off in a blip to Helsinki, 1952._

River had been quite angry at him after that. She was going to ask him something. She never did, though. Maybe she could ask her about it later, while they went through their diaries. 

Her eyes fell on a sparkling golden-blue galaxy, where they had almost been sacrificed to the rain gods, and the greenish one next to where she caught River the day they faced the angels in the Byzantium, and just below that, if she squinted, she could see-

Darillium. 

The last place the Doctor had seen her. And what a night it was. 

_“But you’re you. There’s always a loophole. You wait until the last minute and then you spring it on me-“ She was pleading with him, as if he had a say in the mess that was their time streams. It broke his hearts to see her like this- frantic, grasping at straws of hope, only for him to let her down again._

_“Every night is the last night, every Christmas is the last Christmas-“_

_“But you will!” she’d begged. “You’ll wait until I’ve given up hope! All will be lost and you’ll do that smug little smile and then you’ll save the day, you always do.” She was on the verge of tears, a pained smile on her face that put up a mask of hope that was quickly fading._

_“No, I don’t. Not always.”_

Oh how wrong he had been. 

Such a bittersweet moment, now reclaimed with joy. Perhaps they could go back to Darillium, have a proper anniversary dinner with the singing towers filling their ears with sweet music as they gaze into each other's eyes once more. 

She couldn’t help but smile at that. 

In a blip, the TARDIS’ hologram feature activated and Professor River Song found herself standing in an unfamiliar console room that she could feel was _her TARDIS_ , mere moments after saying goodbye to _her Doctor_ on Trenzalore. 

She couldn’t see the older Doctor, still sitting in the great double doors of the TARDIS, just behind the great big core that pierced the console. The Doctor couldn’t see her either, mind caught up in the stardust. 

“Sweetie?” her voice rang through the room. 

The Doctor froze for a moment, sucking in a sharp breath. 

_It worked. She’s here. Oh my god, she’s really here._

She found the courage to stand up and walk towards her. She gulped, taking a deep breath before responding. 

“I’m here.” Her voice was just above a whisper, her hearts pounding. She finally came into view as she stalked around the console, revealing her wife, facing the mighty core of the engine away from the Doctor, whose eyes drank in the sight of the angelic (albeit a bit see through) woman she loved more than life itself. 

River turned around sharply at the sound of her voice, her hair bouncing across her face with the velocity of the movement. 

The Doctor could do nothing more than gape at her wife, breathing in shallow, disbelieving breaths. River was _here._ She was _alive._ Her hair was as wild as ever, falling around her face like a lion’s mane and her dress flowed around her, still resettling after the sudden movement. The TARDIS’ bright light cast a golden haze around her, making her look like a vision of beauty. But she was more than that- she was _angelic._

“You’ve regenerated,” was the only thing River could manage. 

The Doctor’s breath hitched. She hadn’t even considered that River may not like her new body.

“I _love_ it,” River smirked, trying to hide the melancholy behind her eyes. 

The Doctor made a sound between a sob and a laugh, cupping her mouth so River couldn’t tell which, but the glossy look in her eyes gave it away. 

The Doctor stumbled forward and reached for her, desperate to feel the soft warmth of her hands, only for her fingers to pass right through. 

_‘Hologram_ ,’ she reminded herself. A sense of dejavú struck her, reminding her of someone she lost long ago. Someone she couldn’t save. She wouldn’t let it happen again. 

“Oh, sweetie,” River whispered, putting her hand on the Doctor’s cheek as best as she could, to at least manage some sort of comfort for her wife. The Doctor swore she could feel River’s hand on her cheek, thumb stroking the space underneath her eye, wiping the tears away. She was like a ghost, but to the Doctor she had never been more real. 

“I’ve missed you so much,” the Doctor choked out. Her brows creased and her nose scrunched in a way that River couldn’t help but find adorable, but seeing her Doctor so emotional was enough to make tears threaten to stream down her own holographic face, if that were even possible. 

“And I you.” Her face was full of concern as she asked a question she was scared to know the answer to. “How long has it been, Sweetie. How long since Darillium?”

The Doctor cast her eyes downward, refusing to meet River’s gaze. The Doctor whispered so quietly she may as well have also been a ghost. 

“I’ve lost track.” Her eyes glanced back up into River’s, who could now see the flow of tears pouring out of the Doctor’s red, puffy eyes. “River, it’s been so so long.” Her breath was shaky. She thought she was ready to see her again, to be near her again without worrying her or spoiling the moment, but her emotions betrayed her, giving her tears instead of a brave face.

“Look at me,” she sniveled, “I’m crying. I told myself I wasn’t gonna cry-“ she choked on her words, covering her eyes with her palms as she leaned back onto the TARDIS console for support. She was a far cry from her last regeneration, who detested hugs and intimate displays of affection, but she was also so much like him, with a heart full of love and passion and vulnerability, especially when it came to River, but then again, River just had that effect on the Doctor, no matter which regeneration. 

“My love, it’s alright. I’m here now,” she comforted her, a hint of frustration in her voice as she tried and failed to pry the Doctor’s hands from her face so that she could kiss her forehead and look into her eyes as she whispered sweet nothings into her ear while she calmed down. “God, I wish I could touch you.”

The Doctor looked up, apologetic. 

“We can figure that out later, I’m sorry. This was the best I could do for now. I thought it’d be fitting, seeing as you’re practically part TARDIS already,” she joked, wiping her eyes. 

River laughed. _God_ she had missed that laugh. 

“Human plus time lord,” she corrected. 

“Conceived in the TARDIS,” the Doctor retorted, pointing her finger at River in a ‘gotcha!’ sort of gesture. 

“Yes. IN the TARDIS while in the time vortex. That makes me a child of the TARDIS in a way, as she contributed to the ‘plus time lord’ bit, but I don’t have _her_ DNA, now do I?”

The Doctor chuckled. “Fancy that. You walking about with ‘POLICE BOX’ written on your forehead and a light sitting in those marvelous curls of yours.” 

They laughed together. That was something that hadn’t happened in a long time. That was one of the things the Doctor loved about her: that it was _so easy_ yet _so hard_ to love her. She was like a dream wrapped in an enigma wrapped in a mystery. Everything between them, words, actions, thoughts, even careless banter, just flowed so easily between them, but time was not kind to their relationship. Not until now, that is. 

“You’d still love me,” the word ‘love’ rolled off her tongue so easily, and yet it hung in the air for much too long. River worried it had been _too long_ for the Doctor. 

The Doctor took the challenge, severing any doubts River had. “Damn right I would,” she smirked. 

“If I wasn’t a damn hologram I’d kiss you so hard right about now,” she dared to lean in. The Doctor, however, didn’t shift with the mood and instead kept the light and easy tone from before, pacing around the console as she always did when she got excited. One of the constants in every regeneration of the Doctor. 

“There are a few ways we could fix that. We could… we could upload you into a Tesselecta! Do they even work like that? I should know, shouldn’t I? I was one, well, one was me. Eh, doesn’t matter, we’ll figure something out.” She’d missed that. ‘We.’ “An auton might also work. Like father, like daughter, right?” She paused, turning to look straight into River’s eyes. “I am never letting you go, River. Never again.” A determined smile played in her lips. She had a look on her face full of such certainty that River could see the glimmer in her eyes shining brighter than ever before, no longer dimmed by the knowledge that River was inching closer and closer to the library. Now she was alive. Now they could be together, free from the impending doom of their complex time streams. Now they were linear. 

“You are never ever getting rid of me, Sweetie,” she beamed. Literally beamed, as a hologram, but also gave a smile that warmed the Doctor from head to toe. 

They stared at each other for a few moments before the Doctor’s restlessness once again kicked in. 

“Oh, I have so much to tell you!” Her hands began flapping about as they always do when she starts ranting, and River couldn’t help but chuckle. “Wait until you meet my new friends! My fam, I call them. Earth lingo. I didn’t like it at first but I warmed up to it. Oh, they’re gonna love you! Graham is-” The Doctor finally dropped her hands to the console, her right hand fiddling with one of the knobs as her left rested on the edge of the surface, where River finally noticed something.

“-oh, and Yaz-“ 

“Sweetie, where’s your ring?” She didn’t sound mad, more… disappointed. Had she moved on so quickly? Or did she lose it on one of her adventures? Would she be so careless with something so important? She fiddled with the ring in her own finger, just as she had done every time she felt nervous. It began as a coping mechanism for whenever she missed the Doctor- a way to remind herself that they would always find a way back to one another- and soon it became an object of comfort whenever she felt alone. She still remembers the feeling of it pinching her finger from beneath her gloves in the Library, and the tingle that went through it’s metal as she was uploaded into the database. In fact, it was the first thing she felt upon entering the mainframe. 

The rings were Amy and Rory’s, a parting gift given to them through Anthony the first time he visited Leadworth, just after he met with Brian. The Doctor hadn’t been there, of course, it would feel too much like goodbye, but River was sorting through her parent’s belongings, reminiscing about the countless afternoons she spent with them as Mels- how she and Amy would wander the halls, ‘looking’ for Rory during their games of hide and seek, or how Rory would sit in between the girls while explaining how to solve the homework, or how she would lie down on Amy’s bed whilst she and Rory lectured her about whatever she’d done that time- when he knocked on the door. River didn’t give the Doctor his ring until their first night on Darillium. 

The Doctor glanced at her hand, an alert expression covering her face. Her face reddened upon realizing what River meant, guilt settling in her stomach. 

“Oh! It slipped off when I regenerated. Smaller hands, you see-” she held up her hands so that River could see, wiggling her fingers for emphasis. “-but that doesn’t mean I don’t wear it.”

Before River could ask what she meant, the Doctor tugged a long golden necklace out from underneath her shirt, her wedding ring dangling from the chain. 

“It fit old eyebrows just right, same size as Rory’s. I just didn’t have the hearts to get it adjusted,” she looked back up at her wife, a small smile on her lips. “It seems right though, keeping it next to my hearts.”

_God, she loved her. Her sentimental idiot._

He always had a flair for romantic gestures, especially the cheesy ones. 

“Oh!” The Doctor blurted. “I nearly forgot!” She let go of the necklace, letting it fall only her chest, emerald glinting in the TARDIS light, and walked up the railing where she had hung her coat. Her hand sifted around the probably bigger - on - the - inside pocket and pulled out a small, blue book, worn by centuries of love. River’s diary. 

“I grabbed this on my way out of the library. Don’t worry, I haven’t peaked,” the Doctor let the book move between her hands, fingers restlessly tapping out a tune on the cover. “I thought we could read it together, well, yours and mine, get both sides of each story. I mean, only if you want to. It’s your diary, your secrets, your choice.”

“I would love that, Sweetie. Although, it’s a bit different from our _usual_ rainy day activities,” she said, wiggling her eyebrows suggestively in an attempt to mask the nostalgia hiding in her eyes, “but given that I can’t really be _touched_ right now, it’ll have to do.” Despite the joke, River’s eyes bounced sadly between the Doctor and the book in her hands. She’d always imagined reading it _to_ the Doctor, but it’s not like she could turn a page right now. She must’ve shown it in her expression, as the Doctor continued:

“We can start with mine, if you like. We’ll have more than enough time to get you a new body before we’re through with it-“ she placed the diary on the console before reaching back to her coat, taking out a second, leather- bound book from its pocket “-that way, you’ll be able to hold yours yourself.”

“Perfect,” she smiled. The Doctor knew her too well. Fortunately for her, she knew the Doctor just as well. “I’ll put the kettle on.”

“How?” the Doctor’s eyebrows furrowed. 

River laughed. “I’m part of the TARDIS now, Sweetie. I can control the kitchens, so I can tell you that if you were to go in right about now, you’d find-” she stopped, closing her eyes in concentration for a moment before reopening them and continuing, “a mug of hot tea, extra sugar. Do you still take your tea like that?” The Doctor nodded, grateful. “I’d get you some biscuits but I’m having a bit of trouble finding the jammy dodgers…”

“I’ve got it covered!” the Doctor exclaimed. She took a few steps around the console and activated the custard creams dispenser, much to River’s amusement. 

“Of course you’d have a biscuit dispenser installed in the TARDIS. What else would the Oncoming Storm install in a sentient machine that can travel in space and time?” 

“I’m rather offended you thought any less of me,” the Doctor replied sarcastically, shoving the treat into her mouth. “Now, how about that diary?”


End file.
